I, for one, have felt compelled to chemically castrate for many years. I do not know if the feeling that my sexual urges are more trouble than they are worth is idiosyncratic or more widely shared, but too taboo to act upon. So, I’m opening up the question to the thread!
I have some reservations based on implementation. So, even if I do decide it would be a desirable course of action, the execution may be delayed until the evidence of safety becomes clearer or new techniques emerge.
My concerns specifically are:
The ambiguous evidence on the reversibility of bone mineral density losses due to long term use of chemical castrates.
De-masculanisation resulting in lower attractiveness (physical or behaviour) and therefore less social, political and career clout, esteem.
I would appreciate any evidence anyone can dig up on bone mineral density loss and chemical castrates, relating to long term use and reversibility. I’m struggling to find what I need. And, in the spirit of improving my research skills—if you can give me suggestions for how to do it myself (keywords for google scholar, for instance) that would be good as an alternative! It seems to be a very long and specific question so it’s hard to get clarity!
I’ll probably trial depot medroxyprogesterone acetate (antiandrogen associated with bone mineral loss for long term use) and trial Benperidol (antipsychotic that reduces sexual urges) instead of Androcur, since the latter has well known depression and withdrawal side effects. There seems to be a huge vacuum on internet information and research on the antipsychotic. But, it may be easier for me to get access too since I have other, ambiguously psychotic symptoms. Any info on that antipsychotic truly appreciated. Given that it’s the most potent neuroleptic (tranquiliser), and I’ve been on other antipsychotics which were overwhelmingly neuroleptic (and thus I discontinued them), I most likely won’t give it a try, actually.
edit: I’m considering this now in light of reflection on other libido reducing substances (antidepressants) that didn’t feel very good. Sexual desirelessness felt and probably will feel undesirable in light of this, contrary to my earlier thoughts
Well… I think the general rule is to ask your doctor before doing something that’s different to what everyone else is doing. I think asking the internet is fine iff you ask the doctor before effecting a plan.
(Unless you have personal expertise or otherwise a well-evidenced model about why your doctor is inaccurate in this particular situation)
Meta/style: I expect the first two sentences of your comment to attract more negative feedback than the rest of it. I might have upvoted if they hadn’t primed me to be annoyed. (I read the comment before I read your name, and I’m glad to see the subject taken seriously; the frustration comes from those two sentences. I’m not sure how to explain why. I understand the cultural assumptions that led you to include them, assuming this was genuine and not shock-bait, which seems a safe assumption.)
What are the specific reasons you are considering this procedure—for libido reduction, or for the health benefits, or for the ostensible life expectancy increase this procedure might provide? You don’t have to answer these questions here, but I’m posting them to make sure that you yourself know your own specific reasons for wanting to be castrated; if you know them, you can focus your research on those areas.
Regarding bone density, I’m not sure how much chemical castration hurts you. In any case, I seem to vaguely recall that there’s other stuff you can do to maintain bone density as you age (some of which women tend to pay more attention to then men), so do look into that if you decide to follow through with castration.
It’s been a while since I looked into this, and I looked into the stuff on physical, rather than chemical castration, anyways (I don’t have a good intuition on how much the two differ on most axes, since I didn’t ever look into the chemical castration side of things much). What I’m trying to say is that it may be wise to set aside the research you find on physical castration if you are committed to going the chemical route, unless you’re able to convince yourself that it’s relevant.
Now that I’ve disclaimed that which I needed to disclaim, in the spirit of blatant self-promotion, there’s always this post.
It would be the most helpful if done prior to puberty.
I’d worry about cardiovascular side-effects, fat accumulation/redistribution, mental side-effects (something something spatial rotation)… basically, I’ve studied this on and off since puberty (and not before, because life would be boring if I could do anything right the first time), and concluded that, given my current state of health, castration would probably make more things worse than it improves. Actually, I concluded that circa 2008, and I’m pretty sure I was ever-so-slightly healthier then.
Interesting, might have to look into this some more.
Yeah, the fat distribution thing motivated me not to transition MTF when I was in high school. That and plenty of trannies regret it, most don’t pass, and transitioning is more fad than evidence based treatment to gender dysphoria. Plus I reckon in retrospect it was just a bit of transvestic fetishism which isn’t good to ‘treat’ with transitioning.
That and plenty of trannies regret it, most don’t pass, and transitioning is more fad than evidence based treatment to gender dysphoria.
Really? I’d heard the opposite, that regret is rare and that transitioning clearly improves quality of life. Based on a brief Googling, most studies seem to find low regret and improved quality of life post-transitioning, according to e.g. http://transascity.org/quality-of-life-in-treated-transsexuals/
IIRC, transitioning improves QOL for people who don’t fall into a number of exclusions that I’d suspect are very frequently comorbid with self-reports of transgender identity and/or gender dysphoria. On the same token, I reckon lots of people without gender dysphoria can benefit from transitioning, depending on their risk tolerance, undersanding of sexual strategy and such. But that’s not gonna be a useful spiel for many if anyone who will read this.
...
Yes, I would hear the opposite too predominately, before I started looking into it with a neutral frame. I’m not saying the evidence would stack that way again now, since I did my informal survey of the evidence for myself years ago. But, some reasons to be skeptical of the answer of ‘transition’ to the instances of gender dysphoria:
Bias
On the internet, there are some of the most blatant reporting biases. Particularly when there are communities to generate a particular kind of sentiment. Combined with significant political influence and ‘alliance’ with the other LGBI bla bla bla letters, you get yourself, well, a huge circle jerk.
If you’re looking for something with the slightest bias in your keywords, you’re likely to find it. Heck, Google’s AI could pick up on bias in your keywords 6 months ago in the search results it shows you.
The systematic review linked to is very good, actually. But it’s hosted by a trans collective. I’d be suspicious of bias naturally. That may just be an artifact of pay-walling that they’re kindly willing to flour though.
methodology
Their primary outcome of interset is suicide risk yet it looks like there are only 3 studies that report on it − 1 saying transtiioning increasing risk the others saying it decreases, then about 20 studies not reporting on it...doesn’t give me any confidence in the paper. My general impression from interaction with an (albeit, marginalised subpocket) of transexuals is that the sophistication of current psychological tools are insufficient to grasp the complexities of this issue. They aren’t an exception in this, I reckon the same could be said about a number of personality disorders (of which gender dysphoria is not one).
Importantly, the first thing that sets of alarm bells in the article is that they term transitioning as ‘treatment’. Standard literature would use the term intervention or an otherwise neutral term. It’s just a bit odd. I didn’t read through the bulk of the content below the table so I won’t comment, but it looks properly cited and I saw words like depression and anxiety.
Oh forgot, the other primary outcome of interest seems to be ‘overall impression of quality of life years’. I can’t take that seriously based on a number of things—e.g. non-apriori specification of what would constitute better quality of life, QUL measures are, as a class, shit psychometric tools (tell me about validity all you want).
Ok, I’ve got to the end of this little rant and I’m coming to suspect my frame of mind looking at the paper was to dispute what you said. Not to evaluate it objectively at all. Please frame what I’ve said in that way—I’ve been very biased myself here.
That and plenty of trannies regret it, most don’t pass
I’m not sure that any ever do. It is, I have heard, standard wisdom amongst experienced transsexuals, that every time you walk down the street, you will be read (as they call it). Not by everyone all the time, but every time by someone. The most that can be achieved, which is largely up to the people around one rather than oneself, is to be accepted as a transsexual, as someone who has chosen to adopt certain gender appearances and performances. Becoming indistinguishable from the other sex, even if only in non-intimate situations, is not currently possible.
I’m not a doctor, but DSM II through V may give you a prognosis, and society’s views on your problem as those views evolved over these several editions.
Evidently your symptoms are ego-dystonic, which speaks well for change.
Avoid slippery slopes. With drugs, look for irreversible side effects (that may not show up for years).
I don’t think that he wanted to be castrated for the sake of other people, but for his own sake. Maybe the “urges” are distracting and useless. I sympathize, but castration has too big side effects for me to use it.
I’m not sure the potential risk of side effects of the drugs in question are worth such a change. I don’t know how old you are, but your libido might also diminish over time.
I used to have similar thoughts as a teenager, so I understand the sentiment, but like everything else at that age, those concerns seem minute in hindsight.
How much fun do you have? Increasing hedons might yield a more efficient balance.
I would appreciate any evidence anyone can dig up on bone mineral density loss and chemical castrates, relating to long term use and reversibility. I’m struggling to find what I need.
As far as I can tell, there have been no study about the bone density issue in male castration, so good luck on finding one. However, the problem has been study in relation to DMPA used as a contraceptive, and in that case the effects are shown to be real, although reversible. It is possible that the effect on male are not wildly different.
My concerns specifically are: [...] De-masculanisation resulting in lower attractiveness
That strikes me as peculiarly contradictory: why would you care about attractiveness once sexual urges are gone?
why would you care about attractiveness once sexual urges are gone?
It may impact other areas in your life. Even if you are not interested in other people sexually anymore, other people may feel attracted to you, and this may uncosciously influence their decisions to e.g. hire you at their company. (One of those things that shouldn’t happen in the ideal world, but happen all the time in our world.) People attracted to you will more likely become your fans, if you want to be an artist. They may even be more likely to interview you if you are as scientist.
Shortly, other people’s opinions matter, and other people’s opinions of you are often based on how attractive they consider you (see: halo effect).
Prepare yourself.
This may shock some of you, even by my standards.
Suspend your judgement for a moment to objectively consider the prospect of chemical castration.
There are health benefits, and growing numbers of voluntary eunuchs who don’t do it because of prostate cancer or coercion.
I, for one, have felt compelled to chemically castrate for many years. I do not know if the feeling that my sexual urges are more trouble than they are worth is idiosyncratic or more widely shared, but too taboo to act upon. So, I’m opening up the question to the thread!
I have some reservations based on implementation. So, even if I do decide it would be a desirable course of action, the execution may be delayed until the evidence of safety becomes clearer or new techniques emerge.
My concerns specifically are:
The ambiguous evidence on the reversibility of bone mineral density losses due to long term use of chemical castrates.
De-masculanisation resulting in lower attractiveness (physical or behaviour) and therefore less social, political and career clout, esteem.
I would appreciate any evidence anyone can dig up on bone mineral density loss and chemical castrates, relating to long term use and reversibility. I’m struggling to find what I need. And, in the spirit of improving my research skills—if you can give me suggestions for how to do it myself (keywords for google scholar, for instance) that would be good as an alternative! It seems to be a very long and specific question so it’s hard to get clarity!
I’ll probably trial depot medroxyprogesterone acetate (antiandrogen associated with bone mineral loss for long term use) and trial Benperidol (antipsychotic that reduces sexual urges) instead of Androcur, since the latter has well known depression and withdrawal side effects. There seems to be a huge vacuum on internet information and research on the antipsychotic. But, it may be easier for me to get access too since I have other, ambiguously psychotic symptoms. Any info on that antipsychotic truly appreciated. Given that it’s the most potent neuroleptic (tranquiliser), and I’ve been on other antipsychotics which were overwhelmingly neuroleptic (and thus I discontinued them), I most likely won’t give it a try, actually.
edit: I’m considering this now in light of reflection on other libido reducing substances (antidepressants) that didn’t feel very good. Sexual desirelessness felt and probably will feel undesirable in light of this, contrary to my earlier thoughts
As a general rule, please ask a doctor before you ask the internet.
Why that order? Why not the other way around?
With a doctor you are likelier to get someone who actually knows what they’re talking about. On the internet you can never be sure.
Well… I think the general rule is to ask your doctor before doing something that’s different to what everyone else is doing. I think asking the internet is fine iff you ask the doctor before effecting a plan.
(Unless you have personal expertise or otherwise a well-evidenced model about why your doctor is inaccurate in this particular situation)
Meta/style: I expect the first two sentences of your comment to attract more negative feedback than the rest of it. I might have upvoted if they hadn’t primed me to be annoyed. (I read the comment before I read your name, and I’m glad to see the subject taken seriously; the frustration comes from those two sentences. I’m not sure how to explain why. I understand the cultural assumptions that led you to include them, assuming this was genuine and not shock-bait, which seems a safe assumption.)
There used to be a LW user (Lojban) who frequently posted about the supposed values of castration.
What are the specific reasons you are considering this procedure—for libido reduction, or for the health benefits, or for the ostensible life expectancy increase this procedure might provide? You don’t have to answer these questions here, but I’m posting them to make sure that you yourself know your own specific reasons for wanting to be castrated; if you know them, you can focus your research on those areas.
Regarding bone density, I’m not sure how much chemical castration hurts you. In any case, I seem to vaguely recall that there’s other stuff you can do to maintain bone density as you age (some of which women tend to pay more attention to then men), so do look into that if you decide to follow through with castration.
It’s been a while since I looked into this, and I looked into the stuff on physical, rather than chemical castration, anyways (I don’t have a good intuition on how much the two differ on most axes, since I didn’t ever look into the chemical castration side of things much). What I’m trying to say is that it may be wise to set aside the research you find on physical castration if you are committed to going the chemical route, unless you’re able to convince yourself that it’s relevant.
Now that I’ve disclaimed that which I needed to disclaim, in the spirit of blatant self-promotion, there’s always this post.
For all the reasons you mentioned!
I prefer chemical since it’s reversible.
It would be the most helpful if done prior to puberty.
I’d worry about cardiovascular side-effects, fat accumulation/redistribution, mental side-effects (something something spatial rotation)… basically, I’ve studied this on and off since puberty (and not before, because life would be boring if I could do anything right the first time), and concluded that, given my current state of health, castration would probably make more things worse than it improves. Actually, I concluded that circa 2008, and I’m pretty sure I was ever-so-slightly healthier then.
Interesting, might have to look into this some more.
Yeah, the fat distribution thing motivated me not to transition MTF when I was in high school. That and plenty of trannies regret it, most don’t pass, and transitioning is more fad than evidence based treatment to gender dysphoria. Plus I reckon in retrospect it was just a bit of transvestic fetishism which isn’t good to ‘treat’ with transitioning.
But yeah, different reasons now.
Really? I’d heard the opposite, that regret is rare and that transitioning clearly improves quality of life. Based on a brief Googling, most studies seem to find low regret and improved quality of life post-transitioning, according to e.g. http://transascity.org/quality-of-life-in-treated-transsexuals/
IIRC, transitioning improves QOL for people who don’t fall into a number of exclusions that I’d suspect are very frequently comorbid with self-reports of transgender identity and/or gender dysphoria. On the same token, I reckon lots of people without gender dysphoria can benefit from transitioning, depending on their risk tolerance, undersanding of sexual strategy and such. But that’s not gonna be a useful spiel for many if anyone who will read this.
...
Yes, I would hear the opposite too predominately, before I started looking into it with a neutral frame. I’m not saying the evidence would stack that way again now, since I did my informal survey of the evidence for myself years ago. But, some reasons to be skeptical of the answer of ‘transition’ to the instances of gender dysphoria:
Bias
On the internet, there are some of the most blatant reporting biases. Particularly when there are communities to generate a particular kind of sentiment. Combined with significant political influence and ‘alliance’ with the other LGBI bla bla bla letters, you get yourself, well, a huge circle jerk.
If you’re looking for something with the slightest bias in your keywords, you’re likely to find it. Heck, Google’s AI could pick up on bias in your keywords 6 months ago in the search results it shows you.
The systematic review linked to is very good, actually. But it’s hosted by a trans collective. I’d be suspicious of bias naturally. That may just be an artifact of pay-walling that they’re kindly willing to flour though.
methodology
Their primary outcome of interset is suicide risk yet it looks like there are only 3 studies that report on it − 1 saying transtiioning increasing risk the others saying it decreases, then about 20 studies not reporting on it...doesn’t give me any confidence in the paper. My general impression from interaction with an (albeit, marginalised subpocket) of transexuals is that the sophistication of current psychological tools are insufficient to grasp the complexities of this issue. They aren’t an exception in this, I reckon the same could be said about a number of personality disorders (of which gender dysphoria is not one).
Importantly, the first thing that sets of alarm bells in the article is that they term transitioning as ‘treatment’. Standard literature would use the term intervention or an otherwise neutral term. It’s just a bit odd. I didn’t read through the bulk of the content below the table so I won’t comment, but it looks properly cited and I saw words like depression and anxiety.
Oh forgot, the other primary outcome of interest seems to be ‘overall impression of quality of life years’. I can’t take that seriously based on a number of things—e.g. non-apriori specification of what would constitute better quality of life, QUL measures are, as a class, shit psychometric tools (tell me about validity all you want).
Ok, I’ve got to the end of this little rant and I’m coming to suspect my frame of mind looking at the paper was to dispute what you said. Not to evaluate it objectively at all. Please frame what I’ve said in that way—I’ve been very biased myself here.
Fuck you motivated reasoning.
I’m not sure that any ever do. It is, I have heard, standard wisdom amongst experienced transsexuals, that every time you walk down the street, you will be read (as they call it). Not by everyone all the time, but every time by someone. The most that can be achieved, which is largely up to the people around one rather than oneself, is to be accepted as a transsexual, as someone who has chosen to adopt certain gender appearances and performances. Becoming indistinguishable from the other sex, even if only in non-intimate situations, is not currently possible.
”. . .my sexual urges. . .” You’re scaring me.
I’m not a doctor, but DSM II through V may give you a prognosis, and society’s views on your problem as those views evolved over these several editions.
Evidently your symptoms are ego-dystonic, which speaks well for change.
Avoid slippery slopes. With drugs, look for irreversible side effects (that may not show up for years).
Good luck.
Booo! I’m the monster under your bed!
Haha. I don’t think I’m any one of those. I don’t think I’m sexually deviant, just keen to prioritise for now.
Considering castration seems to indicate that you believe you are the monster, under the bed or wherever.
This may be a reasonable viewpoint for you or for others, or you may view sexual urges of any kind as deviant.
Get other opinions. For the outlying opinions, visit Provincetown, MA [either in person or virtually].
Good luck with what you are struggling with.
I don’t think that he wanted to be castrated for the sake of other people, but for his own sake. Maybe the “urges” are distracting and useless. I sympathize, but castration has too big side effects for me to use it.
It’s a New England touristy small town :-/
Even the Castro district in San Fran would offer better “outlying opinions” :-D
I’m not sure the potential risk of side effects of the drugs in question are worth such a change. I don’t know how old you are, but your libido might also diminish over time.
I used to have similar thoughts as a teenager, so I understand the sentiment, but like everything else at that age, those concerns seem minute in hindsight.
How much fun do you have? Increasing hedons might yield a more efficient balance.
I’m in my 20′s and ‘have fun’ a few of times a year..(no steady partners)
I’m talking about pleasure in general. Not just sexual.
Oh. Ummmm. I guess I have more pleasure than I’d like to. I’m somewhat bad at controlling impulses.
As far as I can tell, there have been no study about the bone density issue in male castration, so good luck on finding one. However, the problem has been study in relation to DMPA used as a contraceptive, and in that case the effects are shown to be real, although reversible. It is possible that the effect on male are not wildly different.
That strikes me as peculiarly contradictory: why would you care about attractiveness once sexual urges are gone?
It may impact other areas in your life. Even if you are not interested in other people sexually anymore, other people may feel attracted to you, and this may uncosciously influence their decisions to e.g. hire you at their company. (One of those things that shouldn’t happen in the ideal world, but happen all the time in our world.) People attracted to you will more likely become your fans, if you want to be an artist. They may even be more likely to interview you if you are as scientist.
Shortly, other people’s opinions matter, and other people’s opinions of you are often based on how attractive they consider you (see: halo effect).
Yep this is what I was thinking along the lines of